William Greer

The Presidential limousine shortly before Kennedy's assassination. Greer was driving the car. Agent Roy Kellerman was in the front passenger seat.

William Robert Greer (September 22, 1909 - February 23, 1985) was an agent of the U.S. Secret Service, best known for having driven President John F. Kennedy's automobile in the motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on November 22, 1963, when the president was assassinated. Some conspiracy theories have alleged his complicity in the assassination, but no court or official report has ever alleged wrongdoing on Greer's part.

History

Greer was born on a farm in County Tyrone, Ireland, and emigrated to the United States in 1930. After working for over a decade as a chauffeur and servant to several wealthy families in the Boston area, including the Lodge family, Greer enlisted in the U.S. Navy in World War II, and then joined the U.S. Secret Service on October 1, 1945.

Greer took a role close to Kennedy, and can be seen in several pictures with the Kennedy family. He chauffeured the president on many occasions, including the day of the assassination. Like all agents involved, he has been the target of much speculation and criticism for his actions on that day. He testified before the Warren Commission regarding the incident.

Greer retired on disability from the Secret Service in 1966 due to a stomach ulcer that grew worse following the Kennedy assassination. In 1973 he relocated to Waynesville, North Carolina, where he eventually died of cancer. Greer's son Richard told author Vince Palamara in 1991 that his father "had absolutely no survivor's guilt."

Analysis and criticism

Some commentators have criticized Greer's actions during the assassination, noting that he did not accelerate the vehicle to get the president out of danger as soon as he could have. In the confusion after the first shot was fired, the limousine's brake lights can be seen coming on briefly, slowing the car to almost a walking pace. The vehicle accelerated several seconds later, but by then the fatal shot had been fired. (Since that time, Secret Service agents have been trained to accelerate rapidly out of the area if they even think they hear gunfire.)

Greer did not discuss slowing the car in his statement to the FBI on the night of the assassination, nor did he mention this aspect to the Warren Commission during the official investigation. His testimony seems to deny that he turned to look directly at Kennedy during the shooting, although the Zapruder film shows him doing this.

Secret Service procedures in place at the time did not allow Greer to take action without orders from senior agent Roy Kellerman, who sat to Greer's right. Kellerman has stated that he shouted, "Let's get out of line, we've been hit," but that Greer apparently turned to look at Kennedy, initiating a fatal delay, before accelerating the car out of the danger zone. As Roy Kellerman told author William Manchester, "Greer then looked in the back of the car. Maybe he didn't believe me."

Greer later delivered a heartfelt, but confused, apology to Jacqueline Kennedy, seeming to claim that either he hadn't heard the shots or that he hadn't reacted in time. Privately, Mrs. Kennedy was bitterly critical of the agents' performance, Greer's in particular, comparing his efforts to those of "Maud Shaw" (the Kennedy childrens' nanny). In films of the arrival of the president's body at Andrews Air Force Base, Greer can be seen ejecting the crew from the waiting ambulance and climbing into the driver's seat. He then drove the ambulance to Bethesda Naval Hospital for the autopsy. No agents were reprimanded or disciplined for their actions during the shooting.

William Greer was thought by some researchers to be the actual triggerman who fired the fatal head shot with his left hand while he steered with his right hand. The head shot was fired at the exact moment Greer brought the limosine to a near stop (an act contrary to all evasive manuever training) and while he was looking right at the president. This possibility was never considered by the Warren Commission. Filmed footage of the event showed two secret service agents being orderd off of the presidents limosine where they were to ride on the bumper standing on foot pegs holding hand rails fastened to the trunk of the limosine positioned to protect the presidents back just prior to entering Dealey plaza. No explanation for this filmed "stand down order" was ever asked for by the commision nor was it given by the secret service leading some researchers to believe that elements of the government were in fact involved in the assassination.

External links

• Warren Commission testimony
• Stabilized Zapruder Film